…The troll mob was a tableau. Trolls stood or sat or lay where they had been when the Big Hammer had struck. There were a few slow imbibers who put up a bit of a fight, and one who had stuck with a bottle of looted sherry put up a spirited last-drop stand until golem Constable Dorfl picked him up bodily and bounced him on his head.

Vimes walked through it all, as the squad dragged or rolled slumbering trolls into neat lines to await the wagons. And then—

The day was not improving for Brick. He’d drunk a beer. Well, maybe more’n one. Where was der harm in dat?

And now, dere, right in front of him, wearing one o’ dem helmets an’ everyting, was, yeah, could be a dwarf, insofar as the fizzing, sizzling pathways of his brain were capable of deciding anything at all. What der hell, they decided, it wasn’t a troll and dat was what it was all about, right? An’ here was his club, right here in his han’—

Instinct caused Vimes to turn as a troll opened red eyes, blinked, and began to swing a club. Too slowly, too slowly in the suddenly frozen time, he tried to dive away, and he felt the club smash into his side and lift him, lift him up and tip him onto the ground. He could hear shouting as the troll lumbered forward, club raised again to make Vimes at one with the bedrock.

Brick became aware that he was being attacked. He stopped what he was doing and, with sparks going fwizzle! in his brain, looked down his right knee. Some little gnome or somethin’ was attacking him wi’ a blunt sword and kickin’ an’ screamin’ like a mad t’ing. He put it down to the drink, like der feelin’ that his ears were givin’ off flames, an’ brushed der fing away with a flip of his hand.

Vimes, helpless, saw A. E. Pessimal tumble across the plaza, and watched the troll turn back to the clubbing at hand. But Detritus, arriving behind it now, pulled it around with one shovelsized hand and here came the Detritus fist, like the wrath of gods.

For Brick, everything went dar—